Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display apparatus, and more particularly, to a back plate member for flexible display, a display apparatus including the same, and a method of manufacturing the same, in which a bonding process of bonding a cover glass to a flexible display panel is easily performed.
Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, display apparatuses are being widely used as display screens of various products such as televisions (TVs), notebook computers, monitors, and/or the like, in addition to portable electronic devices such as mobile communication terminals, electronic notes, e-books, portable multimedia players (PMPs), navigation devices, ultra-mobile personal computers (PCs), mobile phones, smartphones, tablet PCs, and watch phones.
In display apparatuses, organic light emitting display apparatuses and electrophoresis display apparatuses can be thinned, and thus, research and development for implementing the organic light emitting display apparatuses and the electrophoresis display apparatuses as flexible display apparatuses are being done. In the flexible display apparatuses, a wiring and a display unit including a thin film transistor (TFT) are formed on a flexible substrate with flexibility. The flexible display apparatuses may display an image even when being bent like paper, and thus may be applied to various display fields.
FIG. 1 is a diagram for describing a related art display apparatus. Referring to FIG. 1, the related art display apparatus includes a cover window 10, a flexible display panel 20, and a panel driving circuit unit 30. The cover window 10 covers a front surface and both side surfaces of the flexible display panel 20. To this end, the cover window 10 includes a front part 11 and a side wall 12. The side wall 12 of the cover window 10 is vertically bent from both side edges of the front part 11 to surround the both side surfaces of the flexible display panel 20.
The flexible display panel 20 is bonded to a bottom of the cover window 10 by a direct bonding process using a transparent adhesive 50. The flexible display panel 20 includes a pixel array part 23 provided on a flexible substrate 21 formed of a flexible material. Also, the flexible display panel 20 includes a pad part (not shown) which is provided at one side edge of the flexible substrate 23 and is connected to the pixel array part 23. A plurality of link lines (not shown) which connect the pad part to the pixel array part 23 are provided on the flexible substrate 21 between the pixel array part 23 and the pad part.
A back plate 40 is attached to a whole bottom of the flexible display panel 20. The back plate 40 maintains the flexible display panel 20 in a flat state.
The panel driving circuit unit 30 is connected to the pad part provided at the one side edge of the flexible display panel 20.
One side edge of the flexible display panel 20 is bent to have a curvature part RP having a certain curvature and thus is covered by the cover window 10. Therefore, the panel driving circuit 30 is disposed on a side surface or a bottom of the flexible display panel 20, and thus, the related art display apparatus has a thin bezel width.
In a method of manufacturing the related art display apparatus, the flexible display panel 20 is attached to a bottom of the cover window 10 through a lamination process, and then, one side edge of the flexible substrate 21 connected to the panel driving circuit unit 30 is bent at a certain curvature along with the back plate 40.
However, in the related art display apparatus, a bending stress which occurs in a bending area of the back plate 40 is transferred to a bending area of the flexible substrate 21 when the flexible display panel 20 is bent, and for this reason, a crack occurs in a link line which is provided in the bending area of the flexible substrate 21.
Moreover, in the related art display apparatus, as illustrated in FIG. 2, when the flexible display panel 20 is attached to a bottom of the cover window 10, the panel driving circuit unit 30 is damaged due to interference or contact between a side wall 12 of the cover window 10 and a portion of the panel driving circuit unit 30 and/or one side edge of the flexible display panel 20, and it is difficult to bond the flexible display panel 20 to the cover window 10 due to misalignment which occurs between the cover window 10 and the flexible display panel 20.
Information disclosed in this Background section was already known to the inventors of the inventive concept before achieving the present invention or is technical information acquired in the process of achieving the present invention. Therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known to the public in this country.